Wal-Mart Stores Inc. suppliers grappling with ways to meet the retail giant's new sustainability mandate can attend a workshop that will help the companies set environmental goals and benchmarks.
Groom Energy Solutions and Greentech Media will offer a supplier sustainability assessment program Sept. 16 1p.m. to 6 p.m. in Boston at the Mystic Ballroom of the Embassy Suites Hotel at Logan Airport. Admission is $495 for the workshop and $999 through Sept. 1 for attendees of the Greening the Supply Chain Conference on Sept. 17th. A free dial-in number for the Q&A session with Wal-Mart will be offered to attendees of the conference unable to attend the workshop.
The event will be led by Paul Baier, vice president of consulting for Groom Energy and Tim Greiner, managing director of Pure Strategies. Baier and Greiner are also co-authors of a recently released report titled "Enterprise Carbon Accounting: An Analysis of Organizational-Level Greenhouse Gas Reporting and a Review of Emerging GHG Software Products."
The merits of programs such as the Carbon Disclosure Project and green product certifications will be covered. The workshop with conclude with a free Q &A call-in session led by Wal-Mart senior director of sustainability and packaging Sean Stephan, who is also on the agenda to present in the afternoon.
Wal-Mart's Supplier Sustainability Assessment Program will measure the environmental cost associated with products that Wal-Mart sells and report on each product's rating. In its first phase, Wal-Mart has initially required some of its 60,000 suppliers to answer a series of questions intended to assess their relative environmental maturity by Oct. 1 with expanded mandatory supplier participation in the future. Using the results of the query, Wal-Mart will then calculate sustainability ratings for each supplier.
For registration and more information about the conference, visit www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/walmart-supplier-readiness-workshop.
